I have lived in Thailand for 15 years now, and I have really enjoyed my time here.
I met me wife about 2 years after I arrived in Thailand, and then 2 years later our son Luke was born. Ever since he was about 5 years old we have had this plan to move to the UK and put him into an English school for a year or two thinking it would do him a lot of good. Time passes quickly and before we know it he's 10 and we have to start to plan properly for this proposed move to the UK.
Trouble is that there is no visa that is suitable for my wife for us to spend a year or two in the UK, we can apply either for a tourist visa or a settlement visa and we don't find that either is suitable. The tourist visa is 6 months and then you cannot apply again for 6 months after that, and the settlement visa is a nightmare to apply for, hideously expensive and has complicated requirements that we cannot meet due to me having lived outside the Uk for so long.
In the end I found out that as I am a European citizen we could get a visa for my wife for Ireland for free, and that there are no requirements other then proof of our marriage. This is because of the European law on freedom of movement and how that applies to family of European citizens, its called derived freedom of movement.
So, we can now apply for the Ireland visa and start to plan our new life in Europe.
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